Steve,
I have built several power wrappers this summer.
My main goal was to get a wrapper with super speed control.
Over the years, I have built 6 or 8 wrappers with different power systems.
I started with a simple sewing machine motor with a small drive pully driving a larger driven pully to get the 5000 rpm speed down to a more managable level.
The next versions, used a double pulley system. i.e. the motor with a small drive pulley drinving a large driven pulley on the end of a jack shaft with a small pulley on the opposite end. This small pulley then drove a large pulley on the head stock for the rod holding chuck.
Also, my first rod chucks were crude pvc and rubber holders which functioned but were crude.
Then, I went to a flex coat three jaw chuck which was better but not precision.
I now use the machinest chucks from either Penn State or Taig. These are wonderful chucks and go a great job of holding the rod.
The next series of rod turning motors that I used were Dayton right angle drive gear motors. These worked very very well. I found that the 300 rpm final output drive was about perfect. I did build one with a 170 rpm output and then used two pulleys to get the head stock drive up to the nice 300 rpm, which is about as one can handle a spinning rod, while doing the long butt wraps.
The one issue that I had with the Dayton gear motor drives was noise. Because these were right angle drives, using a worm gear, the gear case was quite noisy. Very distracting in a nice peaceful workshop.
So, I continued on for the perfect system.
The last two motors that I have built are nearly perfect. Both of them use a Taig head stock and a Taig lathe chuck. Very fine machining and very precise.
The drive system is a 16:1 pittman DC gear motor. These motors normally sell for about $200 when new, but was able to pick them up on the internet for about $10.
These are 24 volt dc gear motors. The output of these motors are about 300 rpm, when driven by 24 volts dc. I used a one to one pulley system to connect the power of the dc gear motor to the lathe headstock.
I then made an adjustable voltage dc power supply to power the motor. It is plugged into 110 volts ac, and through a transformer and dc power control board is dropped to a variable voltage that goes from 0 to 30 volts.
I found a couple of different foot pedals to control the voltage. In one case, I found a musicians autio amp controller foot pedal that I was able to use, after changing out the potentiometer in the pedal to be equal to 5,000 ohms.
The 2nd pair of controllers that I picked up were commercial Line Master foot pedals that were being sold on the internet by an out of business golf cart manufacturer. These pedals normally retailed for about $250 each and I was able to get them for about $50 each.
Also, in all of these controllers, I have designed in and constructed a reversing switch. I keep the foot pedal on the floor, for foot control; but the control box is on the table near the winding station. I can reverse the direction of wind at the flick of a switch to correct any winding mistakes. Then, a 2nd flip of the switch and I am back in the forward direction. These new controller motors are nearly 100% quiet. The real advantage of these dc gear motors is that they have tremendous torque and virtually perfect speed control from 0 rpm to 300 rpm. So, you can press the pedal lightly and get the rod to barely crawl around as is needed for the first couple of wraps. Then, as you get further into the wrap, you can increase speed as little or as much as you want up to the maximum of 300 rpm, which quickly fills the long butt wraps of most rods.
If you want any further information, drop me an e-mail at
hflier@comcast.net
Take care
REW
